What if?
by Lolly6
Summary: Set in the Bronze, Angel comes back from LA and watches Buffy dancing with Willow to a song which really gets to him and he realises some things about him self.... please R&R!


What if?  
  
Disclaimer~~ I don't own any of the characters they all belong to Joss, and the song was sang by Kate Winslet.  
  
Angel stood at the entrance of the bronze not sure why he was there, he had had a feeling in his gut that this was where he needed to be that this was where he should be tonight, at least.  
  
He looked around the interior of one of his old familiar haunts from when he had been in Sunnydale trying to catch a glimpse of her or any of the gang but her really. He had not seen her since he had left the year before at graduation, that was not true there had been that amazing day when he had been human that they had spent together when she had visited him in LA but she didn't remember that after it had been deleted from time to every one except him.  
  
He took a seat at the bar and ordered his drink a pint straight up served from the pipe, he turned round once he had ordered and paid for his beverage and observed the dancing couples and groups on the dance floor, it was the week before Christmas, a time which he had avoided being out in crowds for decades, but here he was in a bar all because of her.  
  
He smiled as he looked at all the happy faces of the people everywhere, and watched the figures who had been dancing so furiously to the fast beat of the song slowed down at its ending before a new slower song came on across the sound system, it was then as a couple left the dance floor that he saw her behind them smiling and laughing with Willow.  
  
The music started and he stood there watching as the two huddled together as only lovers or best friends could and danced to the slow mournful music progressed, he listened to the lyrics as the singer began almost on the first beat, thinking about how he could relate to the meaning of the song.  
  
*"Here I stand alone with this weight upon my heart,  
  
And it will not go away...  
  
In my head I keep on looking back  
  
Right back to the start  
  
wondering what it was that made you change...  
  
well I tried but I had to draw the line...  
  
and still this question keeps on spinning in my mind:"*  
  
He looked at the young woman who was singing seeing his own pain reflected in the woman's eyes and wondered what it was that had hurt her so deeply, it was only a fleeting glance though as he turned his attention back to the woman who cause the weight on his heart, if he had needed to breathe he did not think that he would be able to, the emotion of the song mixed with his own sorrow was proving to be almost too much for him as it was but it was only his yearning to see Buffy and his need to hear the rest of the song which stopped him from walking out, returning to LA and trying to put her behind him again.  
  
The words to the chorus really hit home to him as he heard the singer's slight yet powerful voice pelt it out with all the passion he felt as he watched his own love and thought of his own regrets,  
  
*"What if I had never let you go?  
  
Would you be the man I used to know?  
  
If I'd stayed, if you tried,  
  
if we could only turn back time,  
  
But I guess we'll never know."*  
  
He had often wondered whether he had made the right decision leaving Sunnydale, leaving her, but had always come to the conclusion that it was as they wouldn't have had any kind of future, he would not have been able to provide her with the life which he knew deep down that she deserved, a home, children and most importantly safety for herself and her children. That was something she would never have had with him but yet even though he knew it had been the right thing to do, there had always been a niggling feeling at the back of his mind, which had always asked him, What if?  
  
Maybe if he had stayed then things could have been different, he had left people his whole un-life in order to make things easier for them, for him, and now he felt like everyone he had ever lost, hurt, left, loved were embodied in the petite blonde dancing in front of him clinging to her red haired companion.  
  
* "Many roads that you can take,  
  
some to joy some to heartbreak,  
  
Anyone can lose their way  
  
And if I said that we could turn it back,  
  
right back to the start,  
  
Would you take the chance and make the change?  
  
Do you think how it would have been sometimes?  
  
Do you pray that I'd never left your side?" *  
  
He started to wonder what she felt when she thought about him, whether she wondered what could have been, he kicked himself mentally knowing the answer, she had not wanted him to leave, had wanted him to stay with her to try and work at the relationship which both of them knew would be doomed, but he had been the one who had thrown the towel in, who had said there was no hope and left.  
  
Answers were swimming in his mind to the questions, which the singer was posing to the love who she had left,  
  
* "If only we could turn the hands of time.  
  
If I could take it back would you still be mine..?  
'  
Cause I tried but I had to draw the line,  
  
and still this question keeps on spinning in my mind:" *  
  
He finished his drink as the singer sand the final turn of the questioning chorus, after he had downed the last drops of his drink he got up from his seat and paid, he took one last look at his love as she danced and whispered his undying love for her as he left silently asking his final question, as he climbed into his car and started the engine,  
  
"What if?"  
  
And the singer answered in her own whispered tone as the music came to a close,  
  
"We'll never know" 


End file.
